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1 Poetry Packet: I Browse poets.org for more poetry or additional information HAIKU A traditional Japanese haiku is a three-line poem with seventeen syllables, written in a 5/7/5 syllable count. Often focusing on images from nature, haiku emphasizes simplicity, intensity, and directness of expression. Haiku began in thirteenth-century Japan as the opening phrase of renga, an oral poem, generally 100 stanzas long, which was also composed syllabically. The much shorter haiku broke away from renga in the sixteenth-century, and was mastered a century later by Matsuo Basho, who wrote this classic haiku: An old pond! A frog jumps in the sound of water. Among the greatest traditional haiku poets are Basho, Yosa Buson, Kobayashi Issa, and Masaoka Shiki. In a Station of the Metro Ezra Pound, The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough.

2 SONNET From the Italian sonetto, which means a little sound or song," the sonnet is a popular classical form that has compelled poets for centuries. Traditionally, the sonnet is a fourteen-line poem written in iambic pentameter, which employ one of several rhyme schemes and adhere to a tightly structured thematic organization. Two sonnet forms provide the models from which all other sonnets are formed: the Petrachan and the Shakespearean. Petrarchan Sonnet The first and most common sonnet is the Petrarchan, or Italian. Named after one of its greatest practitioners, the Italian poet Petrarch, the Petrarchan sonnet is divided into two stanzas, the octave (the first eight lines) followed by the answering sestet (the final six lines). The tightly woven rhyme scheme, abba, abba, cdecde or cdcdcd, is suited for the rhyme-rich Italian language, though there are many fine examples in English. Since the Petrarchan presents an argument, observation, question, or some other answerable charge in the octave, a turn, or volta, occurs between the eighth and ninth lines. This turn marks a shift in the direction of the foregoing argument or narrative, turning the sestet into the vehicle for the counterargument, clarification, or whatever answer the octave demands. Shakespearean Sonnet The second major type of sonnet, the Shakespearean, or English sonnet, follows a different set of rules. Here, three quatrains and a couplet follow this rhyme scheme: abab, cdcd, efef, gg. The couplet plays a pivotal role, usually arriving in the form of a conclusion, amplification, or even refutation of the previous three stanzas, often creating an epiphanic quality to the end. In Sonnet 130 of William Shakespeare s epic sonnet cycle, the first twelve lines compare the speaker s mistress unfavorably with nature s beauties. But the concluding couplet swerves in a surprising direction.

3 My mistress eyes are nothing like the sun (Sonnet 130) William Shakespeare, My mistress eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips red; If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. I have seen roses damasked, red and white, But no such roses see I in her cheeks; And in some perfumes is there more delight Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. I love to hear her speak, yet well I know That music hath a far more pleasing sound; I grant I never saw a goddess go; My mistress when she walks treads on the ground. And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare As any she belied with false compare.

4 I, Being born a Woman and Distressed (Sonnet XLI) Edna St. Vincent Millay, I, being born a woman and distressed By all the needs and notions of my kind, Am urged by your propinquity to find Your person fair, and feel a certain zest To bear your body s weight upon my breast: So subtly is the fume of life designed, To clarify the pulse and cloud the mind, And leave me once again undone, possessed. Think not for this, however, the poor treason Of my stout blood against my staggering brain, I shall remember you with love, or season My scorn with pity, let me make it plain: I find this frenzy insufficient reason For conversation when we meet again.

5 LIMERICK A popular form in children s verse, the limerick is often comical, nonsensical, and sometimes even lewd. The form is well known to generations of English-speaking readers, by way of Mother Goose nursery rhymes, first published in Composed of five lines, the limerick adheres to a strict rhyme scheme and bouncy rhythm, making it easy to memorize. Typically, the first two lines rhyme with each other, the third and fourth rhyme together, and the fifth line either repeats the first line or rhymes with it. The limerick s anapestic rhythm is created by an accentual pattern that contains many sets of double weakly-stressed syllables. The pattern can be illustrated with dashes denoting weak syllables, and back-slashes for stresses: 1) - / - - / - - / 2) - / - - / - - / 3) - / - - / 4) - / - - / 5) - / - - / - - / Book of Nonsense, 1, 10 & 11 Edward Lear, There was an Old Man with a beard, Who said, It is just as I feared!-- Two Owls and a Hen, Four Larks and a Wren, Have all built their nests in my beard!

6 10. There was an Old Man in a tree, Who was horribly bored by a Bee; When they said, Does it buzz? He replied, Yes, it does! It s a regular brute of a Bee! 12. There was a Young Lady whose chin, Resembled the point of a pin: So she had it made sharp, And purchased a harp, And played several tunes with her chin.

Introduction to Poetry: Forms and Elements Study Guide. The Limerick

Introduction to Poetry: Forms and Elements Study Guide. The Limerick The Limerick Almost everybody can identify a limerick when one is recited. It does, however, have a meter and rhyme that can be articulated: five lines of anapestic meter, with a rhyme scheme of aabba.